ARTICLES ABOUT WANG DAN BY DATE - PAGE 3

By locking up one of the best known leaders of the 1989 Tiananmen Square democracy movement, China has crushed the last vestiges of known political opposition to Communist Party rule, human rights groups said Wednesday. Wang Dan, 27, was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment by a Beijing court Wednesday for "conspiring to subvert the government" after a trial that lasted less than four hours and signaled China's continued determination to stamp out all political dissent. International appeals for clemency went unheeded as the court ruled that "Wang had engaged in a series of activities to topple the government, overthrow the regime of the proletarian dictatorship and the socialist system."

Beaming uncensored news and often critical commentary, Radio Free Asia's broadcasts may be music to the ears of people yearning for freedom and democracy in China. But to Beijing authorities, it sounds like trouble. "Meddling," complained one government spokesman, warning ominously that the Mandarin-language broadcasts are "not advantageous" to U.S.-China relations. Amid an ongoing debate about how to promote human rights and democratic values in China and other repressive nations, Radio Free Asia has gone on the air with lofty ambitions and not unexpected controversy.

A senior U.S. official discussed human rights issues with a Chinese leader Wednesday, hours after a Chinese dissident arrived in the United States seeking asylum. State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns in Washington said Assistant Secretary of State Winston Lord had raised Chinese treatment of dissidents at a meeting with Deputy Foreign Minister Liu Huaqiu. "They discussed the situation in Korea, some bilateral issues, including human rights," Burns said. The official reason for Lord's China stop is to lay groundwork for a visit Nov. 21 by Secretary of State Warren Christopher.

The mother of detained Chinese dissident Wang Dan said Monday she would defend her son against the capital charge of plotting to overthrow the government and that he was prepared for a heavy sentence. "Two defense counsels are allowed . . . I will be one of them," Wang Lingyun, a museum researcher who has no background in law, told Reuters in an interview. A court spokeswoman confirmed Wang Dan, 26, had been charged with plotting to overthrow the government but declined to give further details.

A former student leader in China's democracy movement told his mother Monday that charges against him for plotting to overthrow the government were fabricated. Wang Dan was held for 16 1/2 months before his family was told last week that he had been charged. His mother was allowed to see him Monday for the first time since he was detained. Wang said he had done nothing wrong, and the charges against him were groundless, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said in a statement.

One of China's most prominent dissidents has been charged with a capital offense as China launches a renewed crackdown against the few activists not already detained for opposing the government. Wang Dan, who was No. 1 on the "most wanted" list of students after the 1989 suppression of protesters in Tiananmen Square, is expected to go to trial this week on charges of plotting to subvert the state, the New York-based group Human Rights in China said Saturday. The charge, identical to the one that saw China's longest-serving political prisoner Wei Jingsheng sentenced to 14 years imprisonment last year, is certain to result in a lengthy sentence.

The haughty security agents who took away scientist Chen Ziming told his father: "Your son is feeling better now, so he can serve the rest of his 13-year term behind bars." Chen, whose ailments include heart and liver problems, was one of two "black hands" convicted as masterminds behind the 1989 pro-democracy movement that culminated in the massacre six years ago in Tiananmen Square. His much publicized release on medical grounds a year ago helped China procure renewal of its most-favored-nation status from the U.S., a concession worth billions of dollars.

The three young travelers on a crowded train in central China exclaimed loudly, "We are all good communists." Then, edging closer to the foreigner, one whispered "Wang Dan?" The young traveler was stunned to learn that Wang, the most-wanted student dissident after the 1989 pro-democracy movement on Tiananmen Square, had been released from jail last year. The trio on the train buzzed in excitement. "Wuer Kaixi?" inquired the young traveler, a computer science graduate, again crossing both hands in his lap to indicate manacles, and glancing nervously at an air force officer reading a comic book across the aisle.

Wei Jingsheng lost his teeth during 14 1/2 years in prison, but he has not lost his dissident's bite-or his dream for a democratic China. The nearly 50 letters he wrote from prison to Deng Xiaoping and other senior Chinese leaders remain unanswered. But Wei, the father of China's Democracy Wall, keeps writing new ones urging political reforms. He is convinced the flame he helped light in 1979, when he called Deng a dictator and penned the famous dazibao (wall poster)-"We want no more gods, no more emperors, no more saviors of any kind"-burns stronger than ever.